Business leaders applaud new ATO chief

Chris Jordan’s Bio

Chris Jordan was appointed chairman of the Board of Taxation in June 2011. He has been a member of the board, an advisory body to the federal Treasurer, since its inception in September 2000 and was appointed deputy chairman in 2005.

He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, the Taxation Institute in Australia, and the Australian Institute of Company Directors and is a solicitor of the Supreme Court of NSW.

Jordan was previously chairman of KPMG NSW and partner in charge of the NSW tax and legal division of KPMG.

He is the former chairman of the New Tax System Advisory Board and was also the state chairman of the NSW division of the Taxation Institute of Australia.

He is a board member of the Sydney Children’s Hospital Foundation and the Bell Shakespeare Company.

Jordan was awarded the honour of Officer of the Order of Australia in the 2005 Queens Birthday Honours list for high-level advice to Government.

The Australian Taxation Office will have a leader from the private sector for the first time in its 102-year ­history, former KPMG partner Chris Jordan, who will take over as tax commissioner next year.

Business figures applauded the appointment of Mr Jordan – a former police officer who was chosen by Treasurer Wayne Swan to lead the Business Tax Working Group – as someone who will inject into the Tax Office a much-needed commercial approach to the admin­istration of the tax laws. Mr Jordan will replace tax commissioner Michael D’Ascenzo, who announced his shock retirement last month.

In a display of bipartisanship, the opposition said Mr Jordan brought a “wealth of much-needed private sector and government experience”.

Mr Jordan played an important role in the introduction of the goods and services tax under the Howard government. He has served on the Board of Taxation for 12 years under Coalition and Labor governments and advised former prime minister John Howard when he was opposition leader in the 1980s.

Mr Howard said he knew Mr Jordan well and congratulated him on his appointment, saying: “he is very skilled in taxation ­matters.”

First priority will be to listen

Speaking with The Australian Financial Review after the announcement of his appointment, Mr Jordan said he did not want to set out a plan of action yet. “All I want to do is listen to people in the Tax Office and to stakeholders – to business, the community,” he said. “I’m really honoured and excited about a great opportunity.”

A Sydney resident and a champion of the city in his role as chairman of the Committee for Sydney, Mr Jordan will not relocate to Canberra. But he will spend a lot of his time in Canberra, head office to the organisation which has 24,000 staff.

His new role will mean letting go of his numerous external positions.

A Board of Taxation member since its inception in 2000, Mr Jordan took over the chairmanship last year, replacing business veteran Dick Warburton. He served as Mr Warburton’s deputy for six years before that.

Mr Jordan also has a long history of involvement in the community sector. Apart from his role on the Committee for Sydney, which is campaigning to improve the city’s infrastructure and performance, he is on the board of the Bell Shakespeare Company and the Sydney Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Mr D’Ascenzo, who is joining the Foreign Investment Review Board, will be the first tax commissioner to leave after one term in almost 50 years.

The government was widely expected to appoint someone from outside the notoriously insular Tax Office, but some doubted it would go as far as appointing a person from the private sector despite demands for a fresh perspective from business.

Business Coalition for Tax Reform chairman and chief financial officer of Woolworths, Tom Pockett, said that support for Mr Jordan among coalition members was “very favourable”.

“He’ll make a very good tax commissioner, bringing both a good commercial view as well as a good tax discipline view,” he said.

Although Mr Jordan had extensive private sector experience, Corporate Tax Association executive director Frank Drenth said that he was not entirely an outsider due to his engagement with the ATO as a Board of Tax member. “I think it was a good decision by the government.”The current commissioner, Mr D’Ascenzo, joined in 1977, reaching the top spot in 2005. His predecessor, Michael Carmody, spent 12 years at the helm, after 30 years working his way up. Trevor Boucher, the ninth commissioner, joined in 1956 and led the ATO for nearly a decade from 1984.

“He’s used to dealing with the revenue agencies so he wouldn’t be an unknown quantity to the Tax Office at all,” Mr Drenth said.

Mr Jordan will be the Tax Office’s 12th tax commissioner and the only one never to have worked at the office previously – apart from the first commissioner, Robert Ewing, in 1910, who was appointed to head the newly created Commonwealth Land Tax Office.

Each of the past three commissioners spent more than 30 years at the Tax Office.